New Frontiers in Communication

Imagine a church where the pastor can keep up with the daily lives of his or her people without ever leaving their desk or talking on the phone. Where a sick church member can hear the sermon from the last service without the time and expense of cutting and delivering a tape or CD for them. Where the pastor can send a birthday greeting or note of encouragement to someone without using a postage stamp or having a three day lag in delivery. Where a person searching for a church can find information on service times and ministries before ever walking through your door, and you can make an announcement to the entire church or to the prayer chain by sending out a single message! Sound like science fiction? It was until a few years ago.

Talk to any preacher and they will tell you that their primary job is communication. Our job is simply to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ in such a manner that the hearer can understand and assimilate the message, which will then be used by the Holy Spirit to change that person’s life through repentance and acceptance of Jesus as their personal Savior. Other jobs within the church also involve communication. Teaching a Sunday School class, one-on-one discipleship, running a board meeting, facilitating communication in counseling, writing copy for ads or newsletters. The pastor is a communicator.

Seeing all the emphasis on communication within the church and specifically within the job description of the pastor, we have to ask ourselves “how can we best communicate to our audience”? The first thing we need to recognize is that our audience is changing. Along with that change comes a shift in the methods of communication our audience prefers. We are accustomed to communicating with our people through the sermon, through the printed word and face-to-face or by phone. But now we can add to the mix several other methods. Television and radio are two familiar technological tools. But how about a church web site, texting, IM services, eGreeting cards, Facebook and other social networking sites, streaming audio and video, church ‘listserv’, YouTube and the classic podcast? It is the rare church that makes full use of even a few of these methods. The irony is that our people, and the people we so desperately want to reach, use these communications media daily.

The church has an unfortunately well-deserved reputation for being ten years behind everyone else on technology issues. We may not be able to affect the whole church, but we can affect the place we serve. We can use the gifts God has given us to reach people through these means.

Here are a few tips:

1. If you don’t know what one of those terms used above means, do a search on the web and find out!
2. You don’t have to use all of these communication techniques, but picking and using two or three should be enough to get you started.
3. It is not necessary to be fancy, spend lots of money or be flashy, just informative and professional. Many of these are actually free or included with other services you already use. A big bang for your budget buck!
4. If you want to get started but don’t know how…find a responsible teenager and ask them to help. They'll be thrilled!
5. Involve various people in your church in administering these ministries…it helps to assimilate people and relieves pressure on you. Do NOT relinquish final authority on any of these media, however.
6. Realize that there is likely to be inertia in your church and on your board.

You can take one of several approaches. The first is to wait on initiating anything until you get approval. The best way is to talk it up until they think it was their idea in the first place. The second way is to simply go ahead and get something simple started and wait until people notice. Or third, you can do nothing and find yourself increasingly handicapped.

When I started the Facebook account for my own church I wasn’t sure of the reaction I was going to get. Within a week I had 8 people listed as members of the group. Not bad, considering we are a small church running in the 20’s. I also noticed another interesting thing…fully 75% of those people were under 30 and most were under 25. This is the demographic our church needs to reach, and I bet your church does too. Now, realize that each of those individuals have literally scores of Facebook ‘Friends’ who therefore can access your group and find out about your church.

There are many new means of communication out there, and one author has suggested that this is just the beginning. So, if you want to be a pastor and lead a church, then please do lead the way and take the good news of the Gospel to new frontiers!

Happy Podcasting!

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